New Chinese super train

[domino]

New High speed train is tested in China, top speed is kmph 500.

[The_Ghan]

Ahhh .... I saw it yesterday on the China Daily.  I actually thought it was a fake.  The nose is so long and the design seems quite retro to me.  I think I'll stick to my bicycle.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[KenS]

From the article it sounds like they just held a photo-op to introduce it. There's no suggestion that it's actually run at any speed, much less approached its design speed of 500 kph.  I wonder if they're planning to go for the record (which wikipedia says is held by a TGV at 574.8km) and just quoting 500 to save face if they can't break it.

 

The CRH380 mentioned in the article has gotten up to 487 kph (wikipedia records this as a record for an "unmodified commercial train in test run"), and this new train has more than double the kW, so "500" seems conservative. The article cites a world speed record of 300 kph set by the CRH380, which isn't correct.  It might be a reference to "300 mph", which is close to the CRH380 record.   

 

It will be interesting to see if they announce any test results.

[keitaro]

Depends if they bury it quick enough or not  :laugh:

 

social media is so fast these days to hard for any chines man to censor out.

[bikkuri bahn]

This article has a picture taken from a different angle- more with a 50mm lens rather than a wide angle one that would exaggerate the length of the nose.  I see similarities to the N700.

http://www.47news.jp/CN/201112/CN2011122601001632.html

[KenS]

The article seems to confirm its Japanese influence via KHI, but from a different train, Excite translates part of it as:

 

"According to the China south vehicle, a new style train improves train CRH380A developed based on technology, such as the Shinkansen "blast of wind" of Japan introduced from Kawasaki Heavy Industries.The electric power for moving vehicles is pulled up, and in order to stop air resistance, the form of the lead car is sharp. "

 

"blast of wind" = "Hayate" in Google Translate

 

It's possible that rather than crediting KWI they're just drawing a parallel ("we're using the same technology as KWI's E5") or a reference to the older E2 ("we're better than the E2").  I'm inclined to read it as the latter. It may even have been an editorial comment by the reporter ("they copied KWI"). One of the things you lose with machine translators is shadings of meaning, so I can't really be sure. Do you or any other readers have a better take on the article?

 

I do see the N700 resemblance you mention (N700 image from wikipedia):

[linkey]

I am sorry but I am going to be very negative to this train and to the Chinese Government, why would you create a High Speed Train when your record is not the best and definately not very safe. I would not be surprised to see a high death rate if the Chinese do run this train on their rail network.

[jappomania]

similar to N700?

like in Italy says "please don't exchange Nutella with... (another maroon thing)"

one have a duck nose, other is like a crow..

I hope this one have a better brake system than before (good luck to all  passengers)

 

Ciao

Massimo

[disturbman]

People this is a prototype, doesn't mean it will enter production as it is (if ever). Anyway, I don't think the Chinese network has been built to withstand such high speeds on normal service. This train will most likely serves as bench test for different technologies and to show off, nationally and internationally.

[KenS]

I am sorry but I am going to be very negative to this train and to the Chinese Government, why would you create a High Speed Train when your record is not the best and definately not very safe. I would not be surprised to see a high death rate if the Chinese do run this train on their rail network.

 

The train was probably in development for some time before the recent very public problems caused them to scale back their plans.  That said, it remains to be seen if they're going to really fix their problems or paper them over and go back to trying for high speed before they're ready.

 

I think the fundamental problem is that it takes more than technology to make a railroad.  You need the mindset that says you do things a certain way because it is proven to work, and you make changes to that carefully and incrementally.  And you need that throughout the organization, so one impatient manager can't say "we need to keep the schedule, run the trains normally even without signals tonight".  When you don't, people die (and China's not alone in that, it just seems to be doing it more often of late than most places, where such failures are rare exceptions). High speed rail just makes the safety margin smaller. You need to have a safe normal railway (and the people who make it work) before you can have a high-speed one.

 

It's clear from even the limited articles I've read that some of China's problems come from cutting corners on safety to contain costs, and to maintain schedules when there are problems. They need to learn that there's a reason most railways know better than to do that. They also appear to have some of the usual big-government-contract problems of corruption and things not being built to design (hardly a problem limited to China).

 

Both are likely symptoms of China's rapid expansion and modernization of infrastructure.  And probably not limited to railways.  The difference is that highway failures due to these causes will mostly show up in potholes and bridges that fall down twenty years from now (again, not a problem limited to China). Trains have less margin for error, and in most of the world even when run by governments, they're full of employees who know the cost of cutting corners.

 

To disturbman's point, I believe China does have some "high speed rail" lines (I don't know much about it though), but I'd agree that most of their network isn't high-speed, and even the parts that supposedly are would appear to have problems they need to fix first.

 

Still, this train looks more like a technology demonstrator than a prototype for operation (I could be wrong on that).  There's value to pushing the technology forward, even if they aren't ready to put it into practice themselves.

[spacecadet]

The train was probably in development for some time before the recent very public problems caused them to scale back their plans. 

 

Normally I'd agree, but this is China.  The whole reason they're in the mess they're in with their high speed network right now is that they rushed it.

 

Also, this train seems like the perfect way to get some positive press for their high speed network again, which it has done.  All of a sudden you see poorly researched and completely uncritical articles like this one on Jalopnik (which was also crossposted to Gizmodo) talking about how Chinese trains are faster than American airliners.  (Granted, the commenters there were not nearly so complimentary, so not everybody is so easily fooled.)

 

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this is an empty shell with a spec sheet, and that spec sheet is basically a bunch of mostly unattainable performance demands from the politburo that we'll never see approached in the real world.

 

I also doubt we're going to be hearing any test results from this train.  Or if we do, they will be in the form of text with no accompanying video or other proof.

[westfalen]

From what I saw in my brief glimpse of China away from places like Beijing where foreigners usually go in 2007 they should be concentrating on getting the rest of the country up to speed before the railways. A train that can do 500kmh is not going to get rid of the piles of garbage you have to dodge in the streets or the toilets that empty straight out into the ditch at the side of the road.

[Guest ___]

And by this time next week, we'll see China's Transport Ministry berried one after it kills 900 passengers after colliding with a power plant or something as just as ridiculous.

[keitaro]

The train was probably in development for some time before the recent very public problems caused them to scale back their plans. 

this one on Jalopnik (which was also crossposted to Gizmodo) talking about how Chinese trains are faster than American airliners. 

 

probably will reach higher into the sky when it goes off the rails too